A new website, BBC Complaints – www.bbccomplaints.com – has been launched by News-watch. Its purpose is to help hold the BBC to account: to ensure that, as is required by law (expressed in its Charter and Public Purposes), it is properly impartial in its coverage of news and current affairs; to fill an important gap by creating a new, independent …
Charter Renewal Review Fails to Tackle BBC Bias
Former deputy governor of the Bank of England Sir David Clementi’s review of BBC governance as part of BBC Charter renewal looks impressive at first glance – but he has badly misunderstood what is required. What he proposes will leave the Corporation entrenched at the heart of the broadcasting establishment and almost impervious to real change; even worse, the proposals …
Bridgen putdown underlines rot at heart of BBC complaints process
As the crucial referendum vote looms, how DO you complain about the BBC? The reality is that the Corporation is its own judge and jury in dealing with complaints and has neatly-honed putdowns for almost every eventuality. The odds are particularly stacked in the EU debate, as the News-watch submission to the DCMS consultation on BBC Charter renewal outlines. In …
BBC referendum coverage flunks early impartiality test
At the heart of David Cameron’s renegotiation claim is something deeply contentious and what many believe to be a bare-faced lie: that he has secured for Britain an unqualified opt-out from the ‘ever closure union’ ratchet clause in the treaties that underpins and drives the EU project. The BBC – as the UK’s main public service broadcaster – ought to …
Commons media select committee misses the elephant in the room
The Commons Culture, Media and Sport select committee has spent six months considering reform of the BBC in connection with the imminent renewal of its Royal Charter. Its report – published last week with little fanfare – contains some half-decent proposals, such as abolishing the current Trustees and replacing them with a regulatory Board with real teeth, including checks on …
BBC anti-Brexit rhetoric continues with alleged lies over ‘Norway option’
Anti-Brexit group Britain Stronger in Europe has started its propaganda push with a £1.5m leaflet drop. It focuses – with hackneyed predictability – on threats that outside the Single Market, three million UK jobs will be at risk. News-watch research shows that for years, BBC presenters and reporters have been allowing Europhiles to get away with these totally unfounded claims …
Ofcom appointment ‘threatens fair coverage of EU referendum debate’
Opinion polls at the weekend gave the EU ‘out’ camp the edge. But it has now emerged that supporters of Brexit will be fighting the battle to win hearts and minds as the EU referendum approaches with their arms tied behind their backs. That’s because new developments at the BBC and the independent sector regulatory body Ofcom mean that complaints …
News-watch submission to the BBC’s EU Consultation on EU Referendum Editorial Guidelines 15.1.2016
The BBC Trust recently embarked on an eight-week consultation on draft Editorial Guidelines for its coverage of the EU in/out referendum. This is News-watch’s submission. The proposed guidelines are here. Preamble News-watch has been monitoring the BBC’s EU-related output for 16 years. Detailed research based on systematic analysis of relevant BBC programming using established academic principles has shown that …
BBC Brexit programme shows strong pro-EU bias
With the campaigns to secure exit the EU now launched, the BBC knows its EU coverage is under unprecedented scrutiny. Before Christmas, Rona Fairhead, the BBC Trust chairman, appeared before the Commons European Scrutiny Committee and swore blind that systems were in place to ensure impartiality in the run-up to the EU referendum. And – pigs maybe do fly! – …
BBC lays down the law on climate alarm coverage
Outrageous. That is the only way to describe respectably the latest impartiality ruling by the BBC Trust. This band of climate change crusaders – led by the Trust’s Richard Ayre, chair of the Editorial Standards Committee (ESC) – have ruled that a show that was a light-hearted dig at climate fanaticism by the Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts on Radio 4 …